Celebrity deaths, illness, divorce and remembrance
Richard Bell (March 5, 1946 – June 15, 2007) was a Canadian musician. Known for his session and live performance work, he is perhaps best remembered as the pianist for Janis Joplin and her Full Tilt Boogie Band and was a keyboardist with The Band during the 1990s.
Death of Richard Bell
Bell died after a long battle with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer, on June 15, 2007 in a Toronto hospital. Richard Bell was 61 years old at the time of his death.
Homer Louis "Boots" Randolph III (June 3, 1927 – July 3, 2007) was an American musician best known for his 1963 saxophone hit, "Yakety Sax" (Theme music for "The Benny Hill Show") . Randolph was a major part of the "Nashville Sound" for most of his professional career.
Death
On July 3, 2007, Randolph died at Skyline Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 80 years old.
Biography
Randolph was born in Paducah, Kentucky and raised in Cadiz, Kentucky, attending high school in Evansville, Indiana.
At the end of World War II, Boots Randolph played saxophone, trombone and vibraphone in the United States Army Band. After his service in the Army, he played with Dink Welch’s Kopy Kats in Decatur, Illinois from 1948-1954. He briefly resided in Louisville, Kentucky before returning to Decatur to start his own group. He left Decatur in 1957.
During his more than forty year career, Randolph performed in hundreds of venues alongside many artists in pop, rock, jazz, and country music. He played on several albums with Elvis Presley and also performed on soundtracks for a number of Presley’s motion pictures.
Mr. Randolph recorded for Monument Records in Nashville and played on Roy Orbison’s 1963 hit, "Mean Woman Blues." He was also featured on "Little Queenie" by REO Speedwagon, "Java" by Al Hirt, "Turn On Your Lovelight" by Jerry Lee Lewis, and "Rockin’ ‘Round The Christmas Tree" by Brenda Lee.
In 1977, Randolph opened a successful club of his own in Nashville’s "Printers Alley." He also frequently appeared on the television program "Hee Haw".
His final solo studio album "A Whole New Ballgame" was released June 12, 2007.
Clip of Benny Hill Show – Featuring Yakety Sax
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. (August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) was an American fundamentalist Christian pastor and televangelist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. He founded Liberty University in 1971 and co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979.
Cause of Death – "cardiac arrhythmia, age 73
Falwell led services at Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. He changed affiliations from Baptist Bible Fellowship International to the mainly conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and ended his self-identification with fundamentalism in favor of evangelicalism.
In early 2005, Falwell was hospitalized for two weeks with a viral infection, discharged, and then rehospitalized on May 30, 2005, in respiratory arrest. President George W. Bush contacted Falwell to "wish him well." He was subsequently released from the hospital and returned to his duties. Later in 2005, a stent was implanted to treat a 70% blockage in his coronary arteries.
On May 15, 2007, CNN and USA Today reported Falwell had been found without pulse and unconscious in his office about 10:45 am after missing a morning appointment and was taken to Lynchburg General Hospital.
"I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast… He went to his office, I went to mine and they found him unresponsive." said Godwin, the executive vice president of Falwell’s Liberty University.
His condition was initially reported as "gravely serious"; CPR was administered unsuccessfully. As of 2:10 pm, during a live press conference, a doctor for the hospital confirmed that Falwell had died of "cardiac arrhythmia, or sudden cardiac death." A statement issued by the hospital reported he was pronounced dead at Lynchburg General Hospital at 12:40 pm, EST. Falwell’s family, including his wife Macel and sons Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Jonathan Falwell, were with him at the hospital
Tom Poston (October 17, 1921 – April 30, 2007) was an American television and film actor. He starred on television in a career that began in 1950. He appeared as a comic actor, game show panelist, comedy/variety show host, film actor, television actor, and Broadway performer.
Death:
After a brief illness, Poston died on April 30, 2007 in Los Angeles, California, aged 85
** Tom Poston’s wife is Suzanne Pleshette, who passed away January 17, 2008.
Early life
Poston was born in Columbus, Ohio. After completing high school, Poston attended Bethany College in West Virginia, but did not graduate; Bethany College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree on September 13, 1990.
Military History
Instead, he joined the United States Army Air Corps in 1941 as a private [citation needed]. Accepted to officer candidate school and then graduating from flight training, Poston served as a pilot in the European Theater in World War II; his aircraft dropped paratroopers for the Normandy invasion. He was awarded the Air Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster, representing a total of three Air Medals for his actions during the war. [citation needed] Poston served in North Africa, Italy, France, and England, and reached the rank of captain [citation needed]. After his discharge, he began studying acting in New York City.
Career
In the 1950s, Poston gained recognition as a comedic "Man in the Street" (along with his colleagues Louie Nye, Wally Cox and Don Knotts) on the Steve Allen Show. For these performances, Poston won the 1959 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Continuing Character) in a Comedy Series. Following that, he appeared frequently on Broadway and as a television game show panelist, including regular appearances on To Tell the Truth and What’s My Line?. While Poston’s film career was limited to quirky comedies (such as William Castle’s "Zotz" and "The Old Dark House" in the 1960s), his television career was expansive, covering the better part of five decades, and saw him contributing his comedic talents in virtually every corner of the medium, from made-for-TV movies to variety shows to situation comedies to talk shows and even to voice-overs for cartoons.
Poston was a recurring guest star on The Bob Newhart Show in the 1970s. He later played the role of Franklin Delano Bickley on Mork & Mindy. A longtime friend of Bob Newhart, Poston played George Utley, bumbling country handyman of the Stratford Inn, on Newhart. He was nominated for an Emmy Award three times for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on Newhart: in 1984, 1986, and 1987. He had a third role with Newhart in the short-lived Bob.
Poston also had regular roles on many other television series: Family Matters, Murphy Brown, Home Improvement, Cosby, Malcolm & Eddie, ER, Grace Under Fire, That ’70s Show, Will & Grace, and guest starred in an episode of The Simpsons as the Capital City Goofball. He also played Art Hibke on ABC’s Coach, for which he was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 1991.
In 2001, Poston married for the third time, to actress Suzanne Pleshette, who played the wife of Newhart’s character Bob Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show. Poston continued to appear in supporting roles in films, with two new ones released in 2004, Christmas with the Kranks and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, and on several television programs. In 2005, he played the character "Clown" on the mercifully brief-lived NBC series Committed. They Might Be Giants mentions Poston as a writer for the New York Times in their song "Critic Intro". In 2006 Poston guest-starred on an episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody in the episode "Ah! Wilderness" as Merle.
Buy from Amazon.com: Gordon Scott, Tarzan & Warrior movies
Gordon Scott (August 3, 1926 – April 30, 2007) was an American actor known for his portrayal of Tarzan in five films (and one compilation of three made-as-a-pilot television episodes) from 1955 to 1960.
Death
Scott died on April 30, 2007 in Baltimore, Maryland of lingering complications from multiple heart surgeries earlier in the year. Gordon Scott was 80 years old.
Early life
Scott was born Gordon Merrill Werschkul in Portland, Oregon, one of nine children of advertising man Stanley Werschkul and his wife Alice. Scott was raised in Oregon and attended the University of Oregon for one semester. Upon leaving school, he was drafted into the United States Army in 1944 and was honorably discharged in 1947. He then worked at a variety of jobs until 1953, when he was spotted by a talent agent while working as a lifeguard at the Las Vegas Sahara Hotel.
Career and Personal Life
Due in part to his muscular frame and 6’3" height, he was quickly signed to replace Lex Barker as Tarzan. Scott’s Tarzan films ranged from rather cheap re-edited television pilots to larger scale epics. Two of them, Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and Tarzan the Magnificent are generally considered to be among the very best Tarzan films ever made. Scott’s (and his writers’) particular gifts to the series included returning Tarzan to his former status as a literate, well-spoken character. Following his departure from the Tarzan films, he moved to Italy and became a popular star of what were known as "sword and sandal" epics, featuring handsome body-builders as various characters from Greek and Roman myth. Scott was a friend of Hercules star Steve Reeves, and collaborated with him as Remus to Reeves’ Romulus in Duel of the Titans (1961). Scott also played Hercules in a couple of low-budget productions during the mid-1960s. His final film appearance was in The Tramplers, filmed in 1966, released in the U. S. in 1968. Scott was married apparently three times, including once to his Tarzan co-star, actress Vera Miles, from 1954 to 1959. He had one son, Michael, born 1957, with Miles, and possibly several more children. For the last two decades of his life, he was a popular guest at film conventions and autograph shows. His manner of making a living the last forty years of his life is unclear, for aside from autograph shows and selling occasional souvenir knives, he does not seem to have been employed. He spent much of his final years living with fans who remembered him from his Tarzan days.
Robert William "Dabbs" Greer (April 2, 1917 — April 28, 2007) was an American character actor who performed many diverse supporting roles in film and television for about 50 years.
Greer was born in Fairview, Missouri and attended Drury University, where he was a member of Theta Kappa Nu. His Southern voice fitted well in shows featuring rustic characters, such as Westerns.
Dabbs Greer in 1999He was recognizable to fans of The Adventures of Superman, as he appeared in three separate episodes on that show, including the series’ inaugural entry, Superman on Earth (1952). He was the major guest star, as a man framed for capital murder in Five Minutes to Doom (1954 – see photo on right), and as an eccentric millionaire in The Superman Silver Mine (1958).
Greer had a prominent continuing role in the NBC TV series Little House on the Prairie as Reverend Alden from 1974 to 1983. Often cast as a minister, he performed the marriages of Rob and Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and of Mike and Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, and he tended to the spiritual needs of the townfolk in fictional Rome, Wisconsin, as Reverend Henry Novotny in Picket Fences.
In the 1958 film I Want to Live! he played the San Quentin captain who finished strapping down Barbara Graham in the gas chamber prior to her execution and was the last person to speak to her. He had a similar role in the 1999 film The Green Mile, in which he played the elderly version of Tom Hanks’ Death Row officer Paul Edgecomb.
In the May 9, 1991, episode of L.A. Law called "On the Toad Again", he played a character who was addicted to a "high" produced by licking the skin secretions of psychoactive toads.
Death
Greer, a Missouri native, died April 28, 2007 at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena California after a battle with kidney and heart disease. He was 90 years old
Thomas Penn "Tommy" Newsom (February 25, 1929 – April 28, 2007) was a saxophone player in the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, an orchestra he later became assistant director of. Newsom was frequently the band’s substitute director, whenever Doc Severinsen was away from the show or filling in for announcer Ed McMahon. Nicknamed "Mr. Excitement" as a sarcastic take on his low-keyed, often dull persona, Newsom was often a foil for Carson’s humor. His brown or blue suits were a marked contrast to Severinsen’s flashy stage clothing.
Newsom joined the band in 1962, and left it when Carson retired in 1992.
Death
Newsom died of bladder and liver cancer at his home in Portsmouth.
Tommy" Newsom was 78 years old at the time of his death
Newsom won two Emmy Awards as a musical director, in 1982 with Night of 100 Stars and in 1986 for the 40th Annual Tony Awards. He also recorded several albums as a bandleader.
Newsom was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. He earned degrees from the College of William & Mary, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and Columbia University. He served in the Air Force where he played in the band, and later toured with the Benny Goodman Orchestra and performed with Vincent Lopez in New York. In addition to Carson’s orchestra, Newsom performed with the orchestra for the Merv Griffin Show.
Newsom was as well known within the music industry as an arranger as he was a performer. He arranged for groups as varied as the Tonight Show ensemble and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and musicians Skitch Henderson, Woody Herman, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Byrd, John Denver, and opera star Beverly Sills.
Tommy Newsom had been married to his wife Patricia for 50 years; they had one daughter, Candy.
Jack Joseph Valenti (September 5, 1921 – April 26, 2007) was a long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and he was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world.
Valenti had been married to Mary Margaret Valenti since 1962, and they have three children: John, Alexandra and Warner Bros. studio executive Courtenay Valenti, who attended The Madeira School. Jack Valenti appeared in a 2006 documentary about the school.
On April 26, 2007, Valenti died of complications from a stroke.
He was 85 years old
Robert George Pickett (February 11, 1938 – April 25, 2007), was a native of Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, who found fame as a one-hit wonder musician under the name Bobby "Boris" Pickett. He was best known for co-writing and singing the 1962 hit novelty song, "Monster Mash".
Death
Pickett died at the age of 69 on April 25, 2007 in Los Angeles, California, due to complications from leukemia. His daughter Nancy was at his side when he died. He left two grandchildren, Jordan and Olivia. The Sunday, May 13, 2007, episode of the Dr. Demento show featured a documentary retrospective of Pickett’s work.
Early life
Pickett’s father was a theater manager, and as a 9-year-old he watched many horror films. He would later incorporate impressions of them in his Hollywood nightclub act in 1959. Pickett was a United States Army veteran, who served in Korea.
Music career
Bobby Pickett co-wrote "Monster Mash" with Leonard Capizzi, featuring impersonations of veteran horror stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi (the latter with the line "Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?"). It was passed on by every major label, but after hearing the song Gary S. Paxton agreed to produce and engineer it; among the musicians who played on it was pianist Leon Russell. The single became a million seller, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks before Halloween in 1962. It was styled as being by "Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers". The track re-entered the U.S. charts twice, in August 1970, and again in May 1973, when it reached the #10 spot. In Britain it took until October 1973 for the tune to become popular, peaking at #3 in the UK Singles Chart.
A Christmas-themed follow-up, "Monster’s Holiday," was also released in 1962 and reached #30 in December that year. Another of his songs, "Graduation Day", made #80 in June 1963. Pickett also recorded a novelty spoof on Star Trek called "Star Drek", again performing the various voices, which was played on Dr. Demento’s radio show. In October 2005, Pickett protested inaction on global warming by releasing "Climate Mash," a new version of his hit single.
In addition to his music, Pickett also performed as a magician as "Dellesandro The Great."
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (February 1, 1931 – April 23, 2007) was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.
Death
Boris Yeltsin died of congestive heart failure on 23 April 2007 at the age of 76. According to experts quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda, recent outbreak of Yeltsin’s disease was due to his visit to Jordan from 25 March to 2 April. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery on 25 April 2007 , following a period during which his body had lain in state in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow. Yeltsin is the first Russian statesman in 113 years to be buried in a church ceremony, after Emperor Alexander III.
The day of his funeral was declared by President Putin to be a national day of mourning with flags flown at half-staff and all entertainment programs suspended for the day.
Yeltsin is survived by his wife, Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina, whom he married in 1956, and their two daughters Yelena and Tatyana, born in 1957 and 1959, respectively.